


I just have to look good, I don't have to be clear

by Merideath



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Banter, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, First Kiss, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-11
Updated: 2016-11-11
Packaged: 2018-08-30 09:51:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8528521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merideath/pseuds/Merideath
Summary: The plan is as dumb as a box of rocks and bound to work. If Pietro is game. She’d deal with the consequences later.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Dresupi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dresupi/gifts).



> This is all dresupi's fault, or Aron Taylor-Johnson's but dresupi is easier to blame. 
> 
> Thank you dizzy for betaing for me, I am as always terrible at grammar. <3
> 
> Title from 'Dirty Laundry' by Don Henley.

The phone rings the second she steps outside the apartment. Darcy sighs, shoulders slumping, keys dangling between her fingertips. She doesn’t have to answer it to know it’s work wanting her to come in. It was her first day off in weeks. She had plans that involved attaching her ass to the sofa and her eyes to the laptop screen.

It was possible that it was her roommate. But Jane was away in San Francisco for some...thing or other that Darcy couldn't be bothered to remember. Jane never called, though; she knew better than that. Darcy was a purely text based life form.

“Sorry, Darcy can’t come to the phone right now, because she doesn’t want to,” she mutters under her breath.

She locks the door, shifts the laundry basket higher on her hip, and heads down the hall to the elevator. A sheet of paper is stuck to the doors proclaiming it out of order in cheerful comic sans. “Not again.” Darcy hugs the laundry basket and makes her way down the stairs. 

The building isn’t large, but it’s old and the stairs are creepy. The stairwell is always cold and dark, tiny windows in their warped wooden frames letting in little light. The stairs end on the ground floor, opening into the small lobby space with its dark wooden floor, collection of uncomfortable chairs, and dying spider plants. To get to the door down to the basement laundry room Darcy needs to pass by the landlady’s apartment. Darcy holds her breath and creeps down the hall as quietly as she can. 

Click.

“Hey, Darcy, I haven’t seen you around lately,” a voice calls out.

Darcy freezes, fingertips brushing the brass doorknob leading down into the basement. Sandra, the landlady, was nice, as far as landlords go; her son, on the other hand, made Darcy feel uneasy. More than uneasy. He makes her skin crawl, despite never really having done anything wrong except stepping too far into the little bubble of personal space she held onto. 

They’d kissed once, not quite a year ago, at Sandra’s New Year’s Eve party. The decision had not been one of Darcy’s better ones. It had been like kissing a mannequin, so wooden she felt splinters between her teeth days later. God, she was a horrible person. 

“Oh, hey, Ian. How’s your mom?” 

“Mum’s good. Still visiting Auntie Brenda in Dorset,” Ian says. His eyes dip down to the modest hint of cleavage visible above Darcy’s plum-colored tunic dress. He reaches out, lightly grasping Darcy’s forearm. 

“Oh, well, that’s nice. I gotta go,” Darcy says, a smile curving across her lips. A smile that was more a baring of teeth than a sign of pleasure. How could she forget about the casual way Ian touched people? Maybe she was just too weird about space. 

Darcy’s breath stutters in her lungs, tension wrapping around her bones. Her stomach feels like it’s made of shards of ice. She sidesteps out of his grasp, opening the basement door. “Busy day today, so… you know, I’ll see you later.”

“Laundry day, huh? I think I have a few bits need doing too. I might see you down there and we can do our laundry together.”

“Okay,” she says, tone falling flat. The basement door opens with a creak. Darcy steps through, closing the door behind her to put distance between her and the landlady’s son. The lights are already on, illuminating the stairs and the little hall leading to the laundry room. 

“Fucking cockgoblin,” Darcy mutters, stomping down the stairs and into the laundry room. The laundry basket is held so tight in her hands her knuckles turn white. Maybe Ian didn’t deserve the acid spilling from her lips, he was a nice guy after all, but it sure felt like he did. 

The room is warm, filled with the scent of laundry detergent and fabric softener, and the comforting wump-wump of the washer. The room isn’t empty.

“Everything okay, láska?”  says a deep voice laced with amusement.

“Piet!” Darcy says, nearly dropping the pink plastic basket in her arms. Pietro sat on top of the dryer wearing a white t-shirt and old school cotton boxers, holding a piece of chocolate in one hand and a battered paperback in the other. 

Pietro’s twin sister, Wanda, lived in the loft apartment above Darcy and Jane’s. Darcy has no clue where Pietro called home, he seems to flit in and out of Wanda’s life with no real schedule in mind. She likes Pietro, he’s gorgeous. A little wild, an incurable flirt, a little bit of an ass. 

Okay, definitely more than a little bit of an ass. He’s also, way, way out of Darcy’s league, even if he wasn’t the brother of someone Darcy considered a friend.

“Wanda didn’t say you were visiting this week.” Darcy drops her laundry basket down beside the empty washer.

“My sister is not my keeper. Chocolate? It’s from Sokovia.”

“Ew, no, not after Wanda gave me that cheese one. Just, no.”

“This is better,” Pietro says, popping the chocolate into his mouth. “Tell me what's troubling you.”

“It's nothing,” Darcy says with a dismissive wave of her hand. A loud bang echoes from the hall and she jumps, adrenaline ricocheting down her spine. “Aw, fucknuggets.”

“What?” Pietro asks, jumping down from the washing machine.

“Ian,” Darcy hisses, a terrible, horrible idea forming in her mind. 

“Wanda says he likes you.”

“Yeah, well, never mind that. Just kiss me,” Darcy says, anxiety ratcheting up a notch. The plan is as dumb as a box of rocks and bound to work. If Pietro is game. She’d deal with the consequences later.

“Kiss you?” Pietro smirks. “But this is so sudden.”

“Please? I'll owe you,” she says. The ice is back in her belly, turning the blood in her veins to ice water. Darcy curls her hands into fists, short silver painted nails digging crescents into her palms. 

Pietro nods once. “Can I?” he asks. His hands hover over Darcy’s hips as he leans down to her. 

Darcy nods, grasping Pietro’s white tee.  _ Please, please let this work.  _

She rolls up on her toes and their faces mash together. His hands settle warm on her hips, thumbs pressing into her belly. Pietro pulls back just a little, tilting his head to the side and slanting his mouth over hers. 

Whatever else Darcy thought about Pietro, the man can kiss. His teeth sink into her bottom lip dragging a gasp from Darcy’s lungs. His tongue slips between her lips and slides along her own. 

His mouth tastes like the chocolate he's been eating. Chocolate, and sugar, and yellow. The yellow flavor that was created by someone who had only ever heard of banana. 

Heat ripples out from her belly, reaching to her limbs as they kiss. Something prickles at the edge of her awareness, a counterpoint to the electric spark twisting in her core, and the weightless feeling of her knees. 

Darcy works her fingers up into overly styled curls of Pietro’s hair. Her nails scrape over his scalp and he groans against her mouth. His hands skim down over Darcy’s ass, lifting her up higher on her toes so their bodies line up together.

Pietro drags his mouth from hers to kiss along her jaw. He sucks her earlobe between his lips, and Darcy shudders, pressing her thighs together. He whispers something in her ear. Words that wrap around the sound of the blood in her veins and the wump-wump of the washer until she can’t quite make them out. 

“What?”

“Your šotek is gone,” Pietro says, easing his hands back up to her waist. 

“Huh,” Darcy says, scrunching up her nose. She blinks, pulling her hands out of Pietro’s messy hair and down to his shoulders. The blue of his eyes is nearly swallowed up by the black of his pupils. His lips are swollen, red and wet, breath coming as fast and Darcy’s own. 

His mouth twists up in a grin that sets a bubble of warmth rolling down Darcy’s spine. The trouble she thought she was avoiding was nothing like the trouble she'd just put herself in, mouth first. Damn it, why did he have to be such a good kisser? And that accent? It  _ did _ things to her. 

“The šotek, eh, goblin,” Pietro says, rubbing his thumbs in distracting little circles over her hips. 

“You’re sure?” Darcy says, cocking her head to the side, eyebrows arching up in challenge.

“Perhaps we should make certain, no?” he says, leaning down. 

He gives Darcy time to pull back, time to run, his mouth nearly brushing hers, a smile still curving across his lips. Darcy’s pulse jumps, anticipation lighting up her insides. She digs her nails into the soft cotton of his shirt, and her eyes flutter shut as she closes the distance between them.   
  


**Author's Note:**

> Sorry, Ian.


End file.
